Unborn Memories
by breakatmo
Summary: Edward and Alice are far from normal, even before they started with all the bloodlust. They conduct their far from normal scenes of living in 1916. Pre-vampirism, AU.


**Unborn Memories**

It's almost been a normal day for them. She knows it won't last, but it feels nice to pretend that it will for a little while. To pretend that she's not the notoriously mad child of their town. They sit in the shade of a comfortingly ordinary willow tree, and she thinks of them as lucky. She thinks that when the sun sets they'll stroll back to their house in an abnormally normal fashion. They'll eat dinner, and then they'll sleep. That's her fantasy, and it's nice, even if she knows it won't come true.

"Today's a good day," she smiles as she says it, and he nods. She knows he doesn't miss the implications of her words. It's because he wants it to end a good day, too.

Then it hits her. So hard, the air in her lungs rushes to escape her body from the force of it, she hears the steady throb of her own heartbeat in her ears. It's not physical, but she wishes it was. She knows what's coming.

"Edward! Help," she's gasping, trying to draw breath. She's in another world. No, she's in another time, and another place. It's the same world, but different in every possible way.

It starts with the silhouette of a person she can't identify. It's familiar, but menacing and not at all friendly, and she knows it's here to hurt her. And then it does. She's begging, pleading for release, it's so undignified. There's blood on the walls, and she knows it's hers. But then it's not hers. It's the blood of others; it's on her face, on her neck, on her hands, and she can no longer hear the pounding that once spread liquid life through her body. She's a monster, fighting to retain her grasp on humanity in an already lost battle. Nauseating and alluring, crimson is all she can see. It repulses her, yet she longs to touch it even as it seeps away over the edges of her vision.

She's on her hands, on her knees, trying to steady the world, and when she looks up there's the saviour. She knows his name. It surfaces from the deepest corner of her mind, like she was born with knowledge of this angel. He's Carlisle, calling out to her in a voice too smooth, too harmonious to be a human's. He's not human. Then he blurs and shifts; changes until he's not Carlisle anymore either. It's a beautiful girl and it's a hulking young man at once, both unrecognisable to her, both unborn and both woven into each other as one. In an instant it changes again, it's Edward and then he's her. Or she's him.

"Alice! It's not real, Alice," she dimly knows he's calling out, and she can hear herself call out too, her own name like it's not hers. Because it isn't hers. She's not Alice. She's bent over Alice, trying to wake Alice up, to calm Alice down, and Alice sinks down into a sea of anything except salty water. She floats further and further away until the absurdly optimistic smile on her face is despairingly indistinguishable from the shadows that swallow her.

Emotion sweeps over her, overwhelms her, and she can identify the bitter taste as grief, pain, the loss of those most dear to him, to them. It fades before she can cry, gone for just a second, because the angel is back. And then so is the pain, but it's not grief anymore. It's blinding agony, shooting through every inch of their being, and they writhe on the floor of the hospital, she on the ground under that comfortingly ordinary willow tree in her fading memories from so long ago.

She screams, using the little air left in her lungs, as loud as her body allows, but she can't hear it because it was in times past. She doesn't scream because of the fluid pain flowing through their veins, she screams because it's painful, too painful to have to carry the unborn memories of others. It's agonisingly surreal and yet real at the same time, and she almost cries because she wants it to stop and she doesn't understand why it won't. It's so unlike her.

The poison's run its course, but the pain still surges through their veins. They're unnaturally, excruciatingly aware of every detail of their surroundings, it burns their nose, stings their eyes. The angel she knows is Carlisle is there, with another, but the combined she and Edward are still sore. Almost happy, but alone. So lonely, she feels his heart ache with it. It's on the edges of everything they see. But they blink, and when their eyes open there's another being there. It's small and fragile and dangerous and strangely alluring all at once. They're drawn to it, by an invisible, undeniable force, and yet they're compelled to push it away. It's unfamiliar, but friendly and not at all menacing and it envelopes them. It pulls them up, out of the darkness to where it's so bright it hurts their eyes. They're content – he's content. He's in love and he's scared but he won't stop, he'll never stop. She separates herself from his mind.

She's alone in her own self, then. Alone inside, but not alone outside. The being – the spirit is still there. It's a he. He's the same as before, but he's changed. He's not small or fragile but she's still drawn to him. He's a danger to himself and everyone except her. He calms her, and she reaches out to take his hand. She doesn't know who he is but she knows he's everlasting, eternal, love.

* * *

Her eyes are already open, but when she opens them again she realises the sun has already set. Her muscles ache and tears spill out to wet her face when she moves. Edward's there, terrified eyes under a mask of calm, his arms around her. Always the unreasonably willing caretaker.

She smiles a deliberately carefree smile at him, "Hello, there," she says.

"You're back," he sighs, "It was worse this time."

She already knows it was worse, although she didn't hurt herself this time. That makes it better. It was worse, but better.

"What did you see?" he asks her.

"Angels, and pain, and heroes, and happy endings," she tries to answer his question. It's hard to explain to anybody else. She forgets things if she thinks about them, like dreams that slip away in the morning. It's always like that. She takes the hand he holds out to her, gets up and doesn't let go as they turn back to the house.

"Pain," she glances over at him as he says it, sees uneasiness flicker over his face before she turns her gaze back to their path. "Don't worry. It's not real," he's trying to reassure her and unknowingly himself.

She knows he only almost believes she can see the future, and it doesn't bother her because she doesn't quite believe it herself. That doesn't stop her from muttering "not yet".

She feels his grip tighten on her hand, it makes her look up at him. He's smiling, and it makes her smile. "Then the angels and heroes and happy endings will be there, too," he says.

"Right. But we still won't end up normal," she says. Then she adds smugly, "You fall in love." It's one thing that doesn't slip over the edges of her consciousness.

It draws a chuckle out of him. "Seems like a very normal thing to do, fall in love."

She frowns, all seriousness. "Not quite."

"Do I fall in love with the angel?" he's trying to keep the mood light hearted, she can tell. It works. Her head snaps around to look at him and she stumbles a little when she laughs. Her throat hurts. He looks at her curiously, "sharing a private joke with yourself?"

She stops laughing abruptly, "Yes. That makes me strange," taking another look at him she laughs again anyway. "You're not the type," and he doesn't even pretend to understand her.

Maybe she was wrong. Because the stroll back to their house is proving to be abnormally normal.


End file.
